My dad belives in conspiracy therioes as well about 9-11. He also belives a certain historical event didn't happen and its hard to convince him otherwise. My sister and I have been trying for years.

Oh, tell me it's not the moonlanding he doubts...

My best friend, who is otherwise an extremely intelligent person(probably one of the most intelligent people I have ever met, actually) truly believes that the moon landing was not real. Because, well, see, if they've done it once, why wouldn't they do it again?

So your friend only doubts the first moon landing, not the next five? I always wonder that about people who don't believe the moon landing(s) happened. They only refer to the first one. The one date I went on with a moon landing debunker, I was so taken aback that I didn't think to ask.

Yes, but no manned ones since the 70s! It's clearly because they can't lie to us now, with all the technology we have. *sigh* We have decided to never talk about the subject again, as it infuriates both of us.

Edited to add, since I just saw ica171's post, the photos are clearly faked. And/or natural occurrences that we are misinterpreting as debris/footprints.

« Last Edit: November 30, 2010, 06:07:14 PM by Andra »

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You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

SO and I have a theory, evolved on a cross-country drive, that every day the sets are built, and then torn down and built again to simulate reality for us. Whenever we saw road crews, we'd say 'Aha! didn't get started early enough!"

Then we met Neil, who was a solid 24k nutter. He believed (among other things) that yes, the moon-landing was faked, and also, that everything in this world as we know it is actually artificially constructed, deep under Antartica. We laughed, but the man paid our rent for two solid years (we were doing flea markets at the time and he would buy anything having to do with the New York Mets, the 65 World's Fair, the Seattle Space Needle, and I forget what else. Oh, and he had a trust fund, and never had to work a day in his life.

He also ran for president in 2000 and 2004, I wish I could find the websites, they were hysterical. Think 'Aliens under Denver International Airport' and you'll have most of his platform.

Aren't there a few Stephen King stories based on that theory, about the world being a set? "The Langoliers" kind of fits that, and there was a show--maybe the '80s version of the Twilight Zone?--that did an episode like that. (I don't think the Twilight Zone was based on a Stephen King story, but I'm not sure.

Aren't there a few Stephen King stories based on that theory, about the world being a set? "The Langoliers" kind of fits that, and there was a show--maybe the '80s version of the Twilight Zone?--that did an episode like that. (I don't think the Twilight Zone was based on a Stephen King story, but I'm not sure.

The theme is probably as old as sci fi. The Matrix was cool because of the effects but the idea has been around forever.

Aren't there a few Stephen King stories based on that theory, about the world being a set? "The Langoliers" kind of fits that, and there was a show--maybe the '80s version of the Twilight Zone?--that did an episode like that. (I don't think the Twilight Zone was based on a Stephen King story, but I'm not sure.

The theme is probably as old as sci fi. The Matrix was cool because of the effects but the idea has been around forever.

And The Matrix is loosely based on the allegory of the cave from Plato's Republic, if I remember my one and only college philosophy class correctly. So the idea is really, really old.

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If a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, librarians are a global threat.

For those of you who know moon landing doubters, there are satellite photos showing the tracks and debris left on the moon by the astronauts. Although it's very possible that the government faked those, too.

I don't know if you enjoy podcasts but Stuff You Should Know did a nice one about people who deny the moon landing. It talks about how ot was shot on a soundstage, how the photos were faked, etc. but in a respectful and informative manner.

Aren't there a few Stephen King stories based on that theory, about the world being a set? "The Langoliers" kind of fits that, and there was a show--maybe the '80s version of the Twilight Zone?--that did an episode like that. (I don't think the Twilight Zone was based on a Stephen King story, but I'm not sure.

The theme is probably as old as sci fi. The Matrix was cool because of the effects but the idea has been around forever.

And The Matrix is loosely based on the allegory of the cave from Plato's Republic, if I remember my one and only college philosophy class correctly. So the idea is really, really old.

I shared a room with one of them in the hospital. I was horribly ill after my surgery last year and had to stay longer then expected. They finally moved me out of post-op after like four days and I was thrilled . . . until I met my roommate. Well, I didn't really meet her because she didn't seem to speak to people like me. She seemed very, very well off and I'm guessing the only reason she didn't have a private room was because she was supposed to still be in post-op, but her family hired a private nurse to sit and stare at her through the night so she didn't have to be in there (to be fair it was incredibly noisy).

ANYWAY - the first day, she was taking pills out a little baggie and the nurse freaked out. She kept insisting she could take them because she's a doctor. Later her doctor told her to knock it off because the hospital was supposed to administer all meds and if she was on something, let them know and they'll give it to her. After being stuck in the same room with her for a few days, I noticed she never seemed to understand what the doctors were saying which seemed strange since she was a doctor. Her family came to visit and it came to like that she was a professor at NYU or something like that . . . and not a medical professor.

The instant they told me I could leave, I basically sprinted out the hospital. I had a spinal fluid leak which is like having a horrible migrane and my husband had to ask her repeatedly to turn down her television.

Yep, Heinlein also took a stab at this marvelous old chestnut, about sixty years ago, in a story he simply called "They."

<snip>

The '80s-era TZ episode I remember very well -- it's the one about the blue men, who rebuild your set from minute to minute. Whenever my old roomie would misplace something, she'd blame the blue men for taking it.

Great premise, really.

- saphie

Heinlein did it a lot, actually; "The Number of the Beast--" and the books that followed after dealt with various types of solipsism, generally that everyone's a character in someone else's book.

Theodore Sturgeon was also very into exploring solipsism; the TZ episode you mention is based on a story he wrote called "Yesterday Was Monday." He also wrote another story about a guy who discovered that every time he decided he didn't believe in something, it blinked out of existence. Polarization in polarized sunglasses? No longer functional. His girlfriend? Poof! Himself? Whoops.

A Coast Guard wife I knew couldn't find a job on our island. To get to the mainland, you have to either take an overnight ferry trip or pay at least $100 each way on a jet or prop plane. The plane lands in Anchorage, overflying several other communities; that's just the way it works here. Her father, who lives in Florida, went on this huge tirade about how she had to be making up excuses to sit around and eat bonbons and watch soaps because any fool could put a ruler on a map and see that it was this tiny little distance from our town to the nearest mainland town and people in Florida commuted that far EVERY DAY. By plane even. So there HAD to be a cheap way to get to the next town and find a job. Her experience, BTW, was all in fast food.